Friday, August 6, 2010

Social Security Statements; hard evidence of Financial Fraud

By MrArbitrage

Marketwatch’s Personal Finance Editor Andrea Coombs wrote a short piece today emphasizing the fact that payroll receipts will fail to cover Social Security payments in 2010 and 2011 so benefits will have to be paid out of the “trust fund”. She writes about how “the long-term outlook hasn’t changed from last year” and that the trust fund is expected to be depleted in 2037.

It is absurd to think these people can predict with accuracy how long it will take for the trust fund to be depleted when there are so many variables involved. Are these people as good at projecting costs and revenues as the Congressional Budget Office? Maybe it –was- the Congressional Budget office making the 2037 projection. The column didn’t say. They have to be assuming a specific level of tax receipts going forward in order to know how much they will need to take from the trust fund each year. Whatever the tax receipts they are expecting, much of it is probably tied to their delusional expectations of higher employment and prosperity resulting from Obama and Pelosi’s socialized medicine bill and tax increases for the rich.

I have to assume that the Trust Fund is mostly “invested” in Treasuries they will need to liquidate to pay seniors. So in order to know when the trust fund will be depleted, they must be projecting a specific valuation for their Treasury Bonds and Notes. Are they assuming that they will be receiving the current ridiculously high prices for this paper through 2037? Are they assuming that China will still be buying to help keep the yields low and prices inflated?

As a rule, whatever they are projecting, assume they are off by at least 70% to the injurious side of any equation and you will never be disappointed.

Coombes reassures the reader “That doesn't mean you won't get your Social Security benefits. It does mean that people in their mid-50s or younger likely won't get the same size checks as their parents are getting now -- and that's especially likely for people with higher-than-average incomes.”

She threw out 78% as the percentage of benefit they will be able to pay out after that magical date of 2037. Well, I have been receiving these statements recently telling me how much I paid in and specifically how much I am going to receive. There were no disclaimers saying this is subject to change and nowhere did it indicate that “past performance is not indicative of future results” as these pillars of rectitude require of all private sector companies to slap on their literature.

Madoff put out those similar fraudulent performance statements, although his at least had the standard market risk disclosures; so he didn’t promote his Ponzi as risk free as does the federal government. Madoff’s problem was the false past performance numbers.

So these statements in writing are clear evidence of investment fraud. I’m going to file a complaint with the SEC next week. If Social Security was a security I would gladly sell my future Social Security payments for 25 cents on the dollar for a lump sum now. Any takers? That’s one annuity I couldn’t in good conscience sell my worst enemy.

Being that I’m pushing 40, I wouldn’t want to sue the elected swindlers for damages unless it came out of their OWN pockets because to set a precedent of collecting damages for financial fraud from the government would mean that I am suing the same bankrupt Treasury that has already been plundered to the point of a trillion dollar deficit. It would be counter productive to make them counterfeit more dollars.

That’s a great idea; sue them personally. Lavish as they are, these scoundrels do not have trillions of dollars in personal wealth so it would be more about the sweet justice of it. Of course the current legislators would do everything within their power to exempt themselves from being brought to justice. They would say that Social Security was created long before most of them were born - making them inculpable. However, people who knowingly carry on a Ponzi scheme are in fact complicit.

A new crop of candidates would have to come out from the beginning, as part of their platform to pledge to impeach all government officials, including those no longer serving, for participating in the defrauding of millions of Americans of a significant percentage of their life savings.

This is a subjective area but the perhaps the way it should be determined is if an official sponsored or co-sponsored a bill that took money from the so-called trust fund and that money was used for any project that is not proven to be within the constitutionally defined powers of the federal government, they should be found guilty of financial fraud and just like Madoff, be prosecuted by the “Justice Department”, then serve the rest of their lives in prison while their assets are liquidated and six figure pensions are divided among the victims of their past and present schemes.

Radical as this sounds, I’m talking about the rule of law. It’s a much more civilized approach than the Jacobinism of late 18th century France. It might seem crazy now but when the results of this scam really hit the fan, a new crop of representatives are going to be held to promises of justice unlike anything we have ever seen. The monumental chicanery of the current administration and the effrontery of our colluding congress are unlike anything this nation has ever experienced – so it would be fitting that such platforms should become a requisite.

A promise to impeach and encourage prosecution might be a good platform for “tea partiers” to ask candidates to pledge. There is no way that the disease can be eradicated by lawmakers who are currently infected with the virus. It would certainly be a case of “physician heal thyself” and with the current crop of swindlers that isn’t going to happen.

The fact that Nancy Pelosi can be in congress at all is an ominous sign of the failure of the federalist system. There are states and districts in this country that are so debauched that they pollute the well for everyone else. It is as though Sodom and Gomorrah have hijacked our country. The fact that Chris Dodd and Barney Frank have just promulgated FINANCIAL REFORM legislation into law instead of rotting in prison and the fact that Pelosi was voted to the position of House Speaker by her Democrat peers is all the confirmation that one needs to realize that this union will never survive unless they are rightfully expunged. Every time I see them and hear their contemptible voices I see a mockery not only of justice but everything that made this country what it once was in all its glory. They are the personification of our national sins.

We have all heard the rhetorical virtues of Social Security bloviated by the politicians for decades; but those are just words, generalities propounded to a large group. The old maxim of “get it in writing” may be applicable in the near future so be sure to hang on to those statements because those are specific promises of specific minimum amounts given to specific people. Subsequently, many financial scam artists are also prosecuted for mail fraud which is how the printed lies of SS are currently delivered.